A year ago this week, Washington Examiner magazine
published a business story
about the downtown restaurant Mazi. Vaccines had only begun rolling out to the general public at the time, so COVID mitigation rules such as capacity limits and mandatory mask-wearing were in place.
Today, with vaccines available to anyone who wants one and the rising availability of therapeutics, downtown Washington, D.C., still looks like a ghost town or as if it’s always Sunday. Coffee shops and restaurants that couldn’t get through the pandemic remain closed. Dauphine’s, a charming seafood restaurant just next door to the Washington Examiner, is often nearly empty.
It’s a sad spectacle, and much of the blame falls on the shoulders of Mayor Muriel Bowser. With Bill de Blasio getting term-limited out of New York City, Bowser takes the top spot as the worst mayor in the United States (though she wasn’t far behind to start).
Here we are in February 2022. Not only does the nation’s capital have an indoor mask mandate, regardless of vaccination status, but all restaurants, bars, and gyms have to verify patrons’ vaccination status, including an identification check. Not only that, but under a law signed in 2020, restaurants cannot provide customers with any disposable utensils (including chopsticks, napkins, condiment packets, or straws) unless explicitly requested by the customer. The new rule applies to in-person, online, and mobile orders.
Meanwhile, crime continues to rise. In D.C., 1,300 people have died due to complications of COVID since the beginning of the pandemic. There have been nearly 450 homicides in the district in that same time frame. Carjackings increased a jaw-dropping 153% from 2019 to 2020 and saw an 18% increase in 2021, and the police have dealt with a
recent spate of flash robberies
of stores that sell high-end merchandise.
Homeless encampments keep popping up all over the city. Travelers arriving at Union Station get a view of the Capitol and a whiff of the stench from nearby tent camps. That might seem insensitive. Still, when the inspector general finds D.C. officials, in 2020, misspent $82 million funded through the Housing Production Trust Fund dedicated to providing housing for the district’s poorest residents, the problem is not with those who’d like to get from Union Station to the nearby Hyatt Regency without encountering angry panhandlers, but with Bowser and the City Council.
To magnify the insanity and get a glimpse of Bowser’s horrendous leadership, one only needs to examine the goings-on at The Big Board restaurant. It’s an H Street Corridor pub that sells draft beer and burgers. The owner, Eric Flannery, refused to implement D.C.’s vaccine confirmation mandate. At first, the eatery received a warning. Then there were fines, and before long, D.C. Health Department effectively shut it down by suspending its liquor license.
The reason? The department said The Big Board “presents an imminent health hazard to the public.” The restaurant doesn’t serve rancid meat. It’s not giving people hamburger buns with mold, nor is it serving poisoned beer. No infestation of roaches or rodents exists in the kitchen. No, they are an “imminent health hazard to the public” because the owner refuses to do what he didn’t have to do before Jan. 15.
For anyone hoping for relief in the form of a primary challenger, that’s unlikely. Bowser has two primary opponents, and ironically, she is considered the “moderate” among the trio. At-large councilman Robert C. White Jr. is an up-and-coming pol in the mold of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — younger and more liberal than his Democratic counterparts. However, White Jr. isn’t plugged into the D.C. political machine like Bowser, and she sits on a big fundraising war chest. Her other opponent is Ward 8 councilman Trayon White. If the name sounds familiar, you might recall that in 2018, he claimed the Rothschild family, aka the Jews, controlled the weather.
Barring a Marion Barry moment, Bowser will zip through the primary and cruise to reelection in November. There are no term limits or an Eric Adams who can save the city from becoming awash in more liberal buffoonery with a giant dollop of incompetence to go with it.
However, as residents drive across the Potomac to eat dinner in Arlington or Alexandria to enjoy a meal without going through a TSA protocol to get in, Bowser has one crowning achievement: Black Lives Matter Plaza. The two-block area between K and H on 16th Street was ground zero in D.C. for the George Floyd protests in 2020. Bowser renamed it BLM Plaza as more of a thumb of the nose at then-President Donald Trump than anything else, and now it is a permanent installation. Local critics call it “Selfie Plaza” because it doesn’t serve much purpose beyond the occasional tourist taking photos of themselves.
And it only cost taxpayers a cool $8 million.
Is it any wonder most people bristle at the idea of Washington, D.C., becoming a state?
